Little Red's Fairy Tales: Book 3
by Apple and Kiwi
Summary: SLASH Finally on a vacation in a seaside town, Red thinks he can finally relax. However, intrigue, pirates and True Love never go on holiday and it's off on another mad adventure in the land of Fairy Tales for our favourite, surly baker.


**PROLOGUE**

Nautical Beginnings

The ocean; it is vast, ever-changing and, most importantly, wet. Very, very, _very_ wet. Perhaps, this is due to it being filled with 90 percent water (with the remaining 10 percent being marine life), but waterologists like to argue that it is because that the world was made from Apple's blood, sweat and tears that everything that appears to be in a state of wet is thus.

Of course, waterologists aren't real scientists and are generally full of bollocks anyways, so nobody really cares for what they have to say in general.

The waters of the world travel everywhere, taking travelers from one distant land to another, ensuring trade and good relations between nations. The ocean of Terra (this is the world's name, by the way) is a fickle thing, however, and is often the cause of quite a few disputes between kingdoms and not a few sea-farers. For you see, where there is a way of life (on land, sea, air or otherwise) there are always those who seek to disrupt it and cause trouble.

'Pissy sea rats', was the old name for them, however it seemed too long a name to shout out all the time, so the scum of the sea were eventually called 'pirates'. Pirates roamed the ocean, stealing from the rich to give to themselves. Oftentimes, they would hoard their keep on uncharted islands, where only those who knew its location would find their buried treasure; others quit being pirates when they had enough booty and went on to become successful accountants.

Amongst all the sailors, they say that there is but one ship to truly fear...a ship as dark as the deepest night, but glistened like diamonds when light struck it. A ship with black sails: the _Midnight Diamond_. The captain was ruthless, as rumor would have it, believing in the rule of 'no quarter'; a fancy military term for 'taking no prisoners'.

And what was this dastardly captain's name? She was called Whitney of the West Windè and she always meant _business_.

Whitney had no match on the open seas; neither man nor beast could hope to tame her indomitable nature. She did have plenty of lovers, though, her favorite amongst the whole lot having been one terrible buccaneer more likely to fall overboard than swashbuckle through a scuffle, called Jack Inlaw. Some say that the dangerous woman did not really love the man, but was merely possessive of him the same way pirates are possessive of their treasure, and a watery grave to any man who tried to take it.

Well, luckily for Jill Muffet, she was neither a man nor a beast (although plenty of her ex-boyfriends would say otherwise-especially regarding her bad moods) and she was what most pirates called a 'landlubber'.

Jill Muffet, in her own right, was like no one else in the world; one thing that set her apart from everyone else was that her godmother was none other than the personification of Love.

Love was the patron of the Muffet family and had been so for many years. Of course, this meant that Jill often had chores that were not normal chores to do, because the Higher Powers always had some sort of plan for the mortals they were familiar with. And one of those chores had led Jill into meeting up with Jack, who was destined to be her One True Love.

Not that she realized it, at first.

Jack Inlaw was a hopeless man, filled with romantic ideas that not even Jill (with her affiliation to Love) possessed. Jack was careless, sloppy and not very good at his chosen career, that being piracy. Oh, he was nimble enough, able to gracefully dodge and duck without breaking a sweat. But when it came to crunch time, he would always mysteriously _disappear_.

This made him quite unpopular amongst his brethren, but the negative feelings of the others hardly ever brought Jack down – especially if he were in a good mood, which he usually was.

When Jack had met the redheaded girl from Baker Town while on shore leave, he had fallen madly in love. Whenever possible, he would try to spend time with the girl – as much as possible! The two of them had even gone on a quest together to take down an evil overlord that was terrorizing her country. As time went on, Jack and Jill became closer and closer, though Jill staunchly denied feeling anything but a mixture of contempt and friendship for the pirate.

It had been hard to prove to Jill that she loved him back, but Jack prevailed with to his highly unusual amount of tenacity. Kissing the girl senseless until she couldn't help but agree to be his girlfriend had helped quite a bit, too.

All the while Jack and Jill were off gallavanting across the countryside, however, Whitney was perfectly aware of what had been going on behind her back and she did not like it one little bit - _not one bit at all_. While her feelings for Jack were superficial at best, she had claimed the dark haired man as her own and as a pirate (and a woman), she would not stand aside and allow some slip of a girl from the mainland take him away. Pirates did not appreciate having their treasure stolen from them, after all, and so began the bad blood between Captain Whitney and Jill Muffet.

Because of their stubbornness, things always ended up in a spectacular catfight that would put all catfights to shame; the last one between Whitney and Jill being the decisive battle on who got to keep Jack Inlaw for themselves.

It had come down to swords between the two strong women and a sword battle that took place on Whitney's pride and joy –the _Midnight Diamond_ - whilst afloat upon the high seas, a good distance from any land. The 'red-haired she-devil', as the pirate captain dubbed her, had snuck on board before they'd left the port town of Bella Notte, ruining Whitney's plans of leaving her far behind and making a clean getaway with Jack on board.

"How dare you try to leave, you stinkin' coward!" Jill yelled, furiously swiping at Whitney with the saber she had stolen from one of the crew when they weren't looking. Whitney parried every move with the practiced ease of someone far more used to wielding a sword in combat. "I ought to rip out your eyes and feed 'em to a crocodile!"

The sun was setting in the distance, creating a beautiful backdrop in which they did their aggressive arguments. The crew was scattered all along the deck, keeping an eye on the proceedings in case of any funny business or if their captain needed their help. They crowed and jeered at the red-haired baker and cheered and whooped for their illustrious (and quite voluptuous) leader. It was a bit one-sided, Jill thought, but only one person's opinion mattered to her, at this point.

"Yay, Jill! You tell her!" cheered a rather tied up Jack Inlaw, with his smiling eyes all but closed as he grinned. For the duration of this fight, he was to be tied to the mast, like some sort of damsel waiting to be rescued.

"You, shut up!" Both women shouted at him as they began to climb the rigging, literally taking their argument to new heights. The sounds of metal clashing filled the air along with the crew's mixed cheering and booing as baker and pirate captain continued their fierce battle, high above their heads. The booing turn to eventual cheering as well, considering the nice view the men were getting down below.

Having the high ground (so to speak), as Whitney had started climbing the ropes first, the pirate decided to cut the ropes under her, leaving Jill to suddenly fall down back towards the deck.

With a quick slash, the ropes below the brunette pirate's feet were sliced off.

Thinking fast-and she had to, because if she didn't she would soon learn the velocity at which a human person could fall and then hit solid wood-Jill twisted her body and latched onto the first thing she could grab hold of. Having caught the end of a lower sail, the baker hoisted herself back up, balancing precariously on the moving wood. Her face going red from anger, the enraged baker yelled with all of her might.

"You crazy bitch, you could have killed me!"

Whitney, who had climbed higher and stood atop the main sail, grinned down insolently at the younger woman.

"All's fair in love and war, poppet, and I'm a _pirate_. Dirty nautical warfare is a given."

"Nautical warfare, my arse! Just admit you're a cheating, lying chit and you know you can't beat me fair and square and that's why you had to use dirty tricks!" Jill yelled back, working quite nicely towards one of her infamous bitch fits. This red-haired young woman had made quite a name for herself-mainly because of her extraordinary temper- which could make exploding volcanoes look tame by comparison.

Whitney, not about to be outdone herself (for she, too, had a nasty temperament known throughout the oceans of Terra), scowled and yelled petulantly back, forgetting about the violent fight they were engaged in, for the moment.

"Well, if I'm such a lyin', stinkin' little chit, then you're a backstabbing, land-loving, gutless boyfriend-stealing _harlot_!"

The crew gasped below as the two women continued to hurl all kinds of insults. Some of which were too horrible and explicit for any reader to see. Therefore, to make sure the minors reading this story do not become irreparably scarred for life, special precautions have been taken to cover up all the really naughty bits. And there were _plenty_ of them.

"You're a bastard child of a - with a- who never had a wink of - who did a - over a table - with the bartender's - newt!"

"Oh, like you're one to talk you licentious - who never - with a bucket of -soup-and oranges and apples and-on the high ocean-twice!"

"You're a - with the face of a gargled - whose mother is a - and the end of a - blue nose - a unicorn - with cheese on top of spaghetti!"

"Bow-legged walking pestilence!"

"Dowdy leper!"

"Scarlet woman!"

"Wanker!"

"That doesn't even make _sense_!"

On and on these two went, slowly meeting one another face to face, yelling and screaming until their faces were blue and they no longer had anything else mean to say besides 'bitch' and 'bigger bitch', continuing on in that fashion until one of them ended up being the 'biggest bitch in the whole wide world'. At that point in time, high up in the crow's nest the two stood in the sunset, panting and gasping for air. Each glared into her rival's eyes, daring one another to say anything else.

They say that actions speak louder than words and as they both had run out of any and all verbal abuse, the next thing 'said' was a slap to the face-from Jill!

And the process repeated itself well past midnight.

It would seem as if these two women would battle endlessly; the two were evenly matched in strength, skill and _stubbornness_.

However, in the end...

_SLASH!_

"Kyaaaaaaaah!"

The pirate captain screamed in _literally_ blinding agony, dropping her sword as she clutched at her bleeding face. The red-haired baker had managed to get one hit in, slicing open her opponent's face and damaging her left eye. She growled, furious to have been taken down by an upstart like Jill Muffet! However, even a pirate like Whitney would obey rules, when appropriate.

Whitney had lost.

Jill escaped with Jack that night, leaving behind the open seas and the wounded captain of the Midnight Diamond and everything else that would keep them apart. As for the lady pirate, she swore that she would never forget that day; for as long as she bore the scar from that wretched little baker girl, she would never forget. Ever.

That cow of a woman was going to _pay_.


End file.
